MOSCOW. (Dmitry Danilov for RIA Novosti) - The EU-Russia summit, which will take place on June 26 in Khanty-Mansiysk, the capital of Yugra in Western Siberia, may give the green light to starting talks on a new strategic partnership agreement a month later.

Russia was ready to start talking 18 months ago, but the European Union could not coordinate the mandate. First Poland protested after Russia had imposed a ban on Polish meat imports, and then Lithuania put forward several conditions for the talks.

Moscow waited patiently for the EU to settle problems with the newcomers. Now that the European Commission has the mandate for the talks, Russia and the EU are ready to turn a new page in their partnership.

This has not settled problems in EU members' relations with Russia, or removed differences between Moscow and Brussels regarding the essence and contents of the new strategic partnership agreement. The talks promise to be difficult, and their outlook is uncertain.

The EU wants a detailed document specifying not only the general principles and spheres of cooperation, but also a program for developing it.

Russia thinks the new agreement must not be a revamped version of the current Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA), which has been prolonged for a year. It wants a new kind of relations with the EU, its priority partner. Unlike the EU, Russia believes that a detailed agreement will be difficult to coordinate reasonably quickly.

Most importantly, such an agreement cannot be signed for a relatively long period, given structural changes underway in the EU and Russia. Moscow has proposed signing a compact agreement that will take into account new realities and aim at in-depth cooperation, and will also allow for a degree of flexibility in implementing it.

It is bad that the sides will start talks without a joint vision of the new agreement. This problem is unlikely to be settled before the talks begin, because the European Commission may not change the mandate it has received from the member countries. Russia, which insists on equal cooperation, is unlikely to abandon its negotiating tactic and accept the EU draft.

They could reach a compromise if the so-called compact agreement is complemented with appendices on cooperation in specific sectors, taking into account the European Commission's mandate. Such a compromise would be largely technical, because the EU and Russia have not yet determined their preferential cooperation goals. Therefore, it will be extremely difficult to balance the striving for a new quality of relations and flexible pragmatic cooperation.

The sides may eventually decide to gloss over uncertainties and differences, working on wording rather than the essence of the agreement. A relevant example is the roadmaps they signed three years ago to create the Common Economic Space, the Common Space on Freedom, Security and Justice, the Common Space on External Security, and the Common Space on Research, Education and Culture.

On the other hand, these roadmaps showed that Russia-EU cooperation had reached a point where political statements on strategic partnership are not enough for progress, which should rest on a firm legal and institutional basis. The sides are aware of this, which is why the talks on the agreement are unlikely to end quickly.

There are other problems hindering the talks, notably Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization. Russia believes that the WTO membership will give it a vital system of bearings in its economic relations with the EU, which it and the EU should accept as common legislation for the strategic partnership talks based on the WTO+ approach.

In other words, Russia and the EU could agree on the spheres where they are ready to proceed further than the WTO norms, and on how far they are ready to go.

One more obstacle is the Lisbon process. After Europe failed to approve a common constitution, its leaders agreed on the new Reform Treaty document, which was not be presented to the electorate. This time, ratification of the document was to be restricted to votes by national parliaments, with the exception of Ireland, which pledged to carry out a popular vote.

The agreement should take this into account, and the new EU mechanisms stipulated in the Lisbon agreement need time for adjustment. Therefore, the two sides should sign the new strategic partnership agreement after it becomes clear how the new EU institutional machinery works.

Besides, Ireland's "no" to the Reform Treaty has further aggravated the situation. Problems within the EU are seriously complicating its efforts to determine the modality of its relations with Russia, especially in the long term.

The EU's uncertainty and the need to quickly find ways out of the crisis will complicate the initial period of its talks with Russia. This is not good, because the dynamics of the talks will largely depend on the initial period and also on France's rotating EU presidency.

France and Germany are the main drivers of European integration and the main advocates of promoting cooperation with Russia. This is why President Dmitry Medvedev made his first western visit to Germany and Vladimir Putin made his first foreign visit as prime minister to France.

We can therefore assume that the talks will last at least two years and will be difficult. Russia-EU relations are developing dynamically, and their progress can provide the basis for strategic cooperation. But their ties in other sectors, such as the Common Spaces on Internal and External Security, are quite inadequate. For the agreement to promote strategic partnership, the sides should make progress in all spheres and balance their economic and political ties.

Besides, Russia and the EU are not just strategic partners but also rivals, and so it is important to determine what form their rivalry will take. They can draft the new strategic partnership agreement so as to make their rivalry transparent and ruled by agreed norms, with respect for each other's interests. Such rivalry can develop without tough clashes and can even boost real, not declarative strategic partnership between Russia and the EU.

Dmitry Danilov is head of the European security department at the Institute of Europe of Russia's Academy of Sciences.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.